by Michael Duca

OAKLAND–San Francisco Giants pitcher Ryan Vogelsong has not looked like his command where it needs to be in the spring. The Giants pitchers none the less have no worries and at least that’s manager Bruce Bochy’s feel on things, if you give up three or four runs in a Major League game you have a rock solid chance of winning the game.

The Giants have made it crystal clear of the fact that they only got 700 runs scorable in that line up and Giants manager Bruce Bochy won’t have to worry about his starting pitching staff coming into the season. Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum got hit square on a nerve when the come backer hit him in the leg on Friday night at AT&T.

Lincecum is looking good for Thursday night’s start basically he got a stinger on his knee from the A’s Daric Barton’s shot and that’s why Lincecum needed help off the field and he couldn’t feel it to walk on it by the time he got to the Giants dugout it was already improving.

The thing you had to worry about with that kind of injury and soaking wet Lincecum weighs 159 pounds so he got bruised up real good and it maybe a little worse than some other people but the injury happened on his plant leg. You want to be absolutely certain especially with somebody who’s fought mechanics in the past.

The team wants to be absolutely certain that when he lands he is landing exactly as he did before the injury so that he’s not altering his motion because that’s a good way to trash the shoulder. So Lincecum wants to be especially careful.The Giants may end up having Lincecum skipping a start if they do they can go with a four man rotation through April 19th the way the schedule works out.

The Giants Brandon Belt may have his breakout season and nobody is paying attention but he actually did last year if you look at Belt’s second half season last year his on base percentage was around 500 and an OBS of 500 would put Belt in the top ten in the National League.

Oakland A’s update: The Oakland A’s rotation is exceedingly in flux because they traded away Brett Anderson, they lost Jarrod Parker, their going to be in a little bit of flux but Scott Kazmir is a classic Billy Beane grab. Here’s a guy whose been out of baseball for nearly a year and was in the Independent League which takes a tremendous amount of fortitude for a player that has had $5-6 million a year and more.

He was the top prospect at Tampa Bay and from what I saw the other night and they spotted Kazmir’s fastball at 98 MPH and was just befuddling the Giants hitters. Kazmir is going to be an absolutely great additon to the roster and when you have the massive amounts of foul territory in a tough ball park and the number of outs he’s going to create there he’s going to have something close to career year with Oakland.

Michael Duca does commentary on the A’s and Giants each week for Sportstlak radio